More heart beats-per-minute were also linked to poorer fasting blood sugar levels.

US researcher Dr Xiang Gao, from Pennsylvania State University, said: "We found participants with faster heart rates, suggesting lower automatic function, had increased risk of diabetes, pre-diabetes, and conversion from pre-diabetes to diabetes.

"Each additional 10 beats-per-minute was associated with 23% increased risk of diabetes, similar to the effects of a three kilogram per metre square increase in body mass index (BMI)."

The four-year study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, recruited 73,357 Chinese adults. Their results were combined with data from seven previous studies involving almost 100,000 men and women.